“If we had understood the earth as the mother of all, even of great values, we would have treated the earth in a different way. We have destroyed it. We have almost poisoned it. We have broken its ecological unity. We have disturbed its environment. And now with nuclear weapons we are ready to destroy it. And it is the source of all that is beautiful, and all that is great.The earth is sacred.”
Zarathustra:
A God that can Dance # 8
The Way of Nature
“Life
is an organic unity. If there is only giving and no receiving, to
whom are you going to give? If there are only receivers, and no
givers, from whom are they going to receive? Life is a balance
between giving and receiving. Roots receive from the earth, and
fruits and flowers go on giving back to the earth. It is a circle.
Man, in his ignorance, has broken that circle
in many places. That's why there is a great ecological crisis. We go
on taking from the earth, but we don't return anything. The earth
slowly, slowly becomes barren, dead. And if the earth is dying,
something of us is dying also, because we are part of it.
You think that the trees depend on the earth
because they have roots, and they suck the juice of the earth. You
also depend on the earth, because those fruits, those flowers,
ultimately come to you. And you must share -- you are trees who can
walk. There are trees in Africa which walk. For walking, solid earth
is difficult -- the roots are not in a position to move. But there
are places in Africa where the earth is not so solid, and there,
trees move. If the water is more towards the north, the trees start
moving towards the north; and when the water is finished, then the
trees start dispersing to other directions.
We are also trees, we are also connected with
existence in many ways. Every second you are breathing in and out.
Just try not breathing out -- because that is sharing -- and you will
be dead. Sharing is life. These trees are also breathing. And life is
such a beautiful unity that you breathe oxygen and exhale carbon
dioxide and the trees breathe carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen: there
is a kind of brotherhood. Without trees you cannot live; without you,
trees cannot live.
There is a constant giving, receiving -- the
sun goes on giving you life, vitamins; the moon goes on giving you
something that is very mysterious. Except Mahavira, all the mystics
have become enlightened on the full-moon night. On the full-moon
night more people go mad -- the number is double -- than any other
day. More people commit suicide -- again the number is double -- than
on any other day. More people commit murders -- the number is double
-- than any other day. The full-moon night has something to do with
it.
From enlightenment to murder... the full-moon
night somehow stirs you. If you are going deeper into meditation, it
takes you deeper into meditation. If you are hankering to kill
somebody, and you are not able to gather courage, it gives you
courage. So what was not possible before becomes possible on the
full-moon night.
For centuries, more people have gone mad on
full-moon nights -- so much so that in every language, for madness or
mad people, a word exists which connects madness with moon. In
English it is "lunatic." It comes from "luna."
"Luna" means "the moon." In Hindi it is
chandmara, "killed by the moon."
George Gurdjieff had the great insight that it
cannot be one-sided: just as with the trees we receive and give, we
must be giving to the sun and receiving, giving to the moon and
receiving. It has to be balanced. We have not yet been able to
decipher exactly what we give to the sun, what we give to the moon --
but we must be giving, because what we receive we know; sooner or
later it will be discovered that just as we cannot live without the
sun.... If one day the sun does not arise, you will not wake up, not
even for your morning tea in bed; you are finished. Your life is
coming from that far-away star, the sun.
But I always think -- and I agree with
Gurdjieff, although there is no evidence and no proof -- that if
every man on the earth, every animal, every tree dies... for which
people like Ronald Reagan are making every effort... if everything
alive on the earth dies, the sun will not rise the next day. It is
impossible that we are just receivers, and not givers. If we are
receiving life in some way from the sun, we must be giving life in
some way to the sun.
We are all a connected whole, interrelated,
one organism. Hence it can be said, as a conclusion: Become richer in
every dimension. Be creative, be loving, be meditative, and share.
And the more you share, the more existence will shower on you flowers
of blissfulness and ecstasy.
The only good is to be in a position of
oneness, so that you are not in a constant conflict within yourself
-- because that conflict destroys you, leaves no energy to be shared.
When you are one, the energy becomes so much that you become almost
like a rain cloud, so full of rain that it wants to shower somewhere
or other.
Sharing is the most precious religious
experience.
Sharing
is good.
And
Almustafa says,
"I will not speak about evil, because evil is only an absence." To be miserly is evil. You have, and you grab it -- whether you need it or not. You have missed the greatest joy of life -- that of giving.Receive with gratitude.Give with humbleness.”
The
Messiah, Vol-2 #
10